Lonnie Timmons III l The Plain DealerEastbound traffic on Clifton Boulevard in Lakewood near the Cleveland/Lakewood border during rush hour.

A grand, taxpayer-funded vision to convert Clifton Boulevard's harsh swath of concrete to a kinder, tree-shaded route has wilted in Lakewood -- but lives on in Cleveland.

Efforts to build a tree-lined median down much of the Clifton's five miles is too expensive for his suburb, Mayor Mike Summers said this week.

And law requiring lanes wide enough for trucks on federal routes -- Clifton carries U.S. 6 and 20 -- threatened the plans, even though trucks have been banned from the busy boulevard for decades, officials say.

Summers' decision to nix the treed median in his city jeopardized the entire plan, just as RTA readied a pitch to ODOT for millions of dollars in state transportation money. An ODOT committee is to consider scores of Ohio projects for funding later this month.

Lakewood, Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority have patched together a slimmed-down plan that wipes the tree-lined median out of Lakewood. It still allows for $950,000 in improvements to bus stops and traffic signals along the suburb's portion of Clifton.

The project's lurching progress exemplifies how aspirations to beautify a busy urban route get snared in the limits of finance and federal law, and has generated criticism of Summers and RTA, which leads the project planning.

Plans to enhance Clifton have been in the works since 2005. Cleveland and Lakewood hired urban planners to envision a boulevard that's friendlier for pedestrians, shoppers, bicyclists and bus riders.

RTA joined the effort in 2006 and later allocated more than $700,000 in federal stimulus money to the project.

The transit agency has spent $433,000 so far. Consultants and engineers were hired to engage the community, gather its design ideas and render conceptual drawings.

"What the community said they wanted was a 10-foot-wide, tree-scaped median," said Mary Anne Crampton, executive director of Lakewood Alive and a member of the project's advisory board. "That's not on the table now. We're very disappointed where it's gotten to."

RTA officials say it's too soon to criticize their role in the project, which is only 30 percent designed.

"With or without the medians, the project will go forward," said RTA General Manager Joe Calabrese. "That doesn't mean you've wasted (money). ... If the median does not go forward, it will save the taxpayers money."

In fact, RTA is seeking $5.4 million in state money, several million dollars less than a request that included a tree-lined median in Lakewood.

Mayor Summers said Lakewood has too many needs and too few dollars.

So Lakewood will chip in just $50,000 to the project, instead of the $486,000 needed to leverage construction of the tree-lined median and sidewalks west of West Clifton Boulevard, a long-time desire of residents in the Lakewood's west end.

Summers said not everyone supported the idea of medians in Clifton. And uncertainty over just how wide the medians could be factored into his decision too.

Medians must be at least eight feet wide for trees to grow.That's something Cleveland officials want for their 1.2-mile stretch of Clifton.

But medians could only be six feet wide now, to make room for lanes carrying cars and trucks. Ironically, both Cleveland and Lakewood have banned trucks from rumbling down the largely residential route for 40 years.

RTA asked ODOT last October for an exception to lane-width standards. RTA's plan includes 12-foot-wide lanes for trucks on each side of Clifton, butother lanes would shrink below standards.

ODOT has asked for traffic studies and will look at accident rates, before it makes a decision. But there's no give on the truck-lane width -- that can be changed only by an act of Congress, an ODOT official said.

That frustrates Cleveland Councilman Jay Westbrook. He railed against the federal law and believes ODOT should waste no time in approving RTA's proposed lane layout.

Westbrook and others said they were chagrined that RTA had not publicized the median-width issue during public meetings last year. That would have allowed the community to join in pressing ODOT for the modified lane layout or to discuss alternatives.

RTA's Calabrese said his agency, its engineering consultant and ODOT knew of the median-width challenge all along. The process is unfolding as it should, Calabrese insisted.

"It's not unusual to have plans or desires that are inconsistent with regulations," Calabrese said. "The next step is to ask for an exception to the regulations."

Cleveland Planning Director Robert Brown said the city's options on Clifton include going with a tree-lined median, if the exception is granted, or planting shrubs or other landscaping if only smaller medians are possible.

There's also discussion of widening the street a few feet, to allow for the treed medians.

But none of the options will go beyond the $722,000 the city has set aside for the Clifton improvements, Brown said. Cleveland is planning new streetscapes and decorative crosswalks along Clifton, along with the upgraded bus stops that Lakewood would see under the project.

Calabrese said he understands the frustration of some, but history shows multimillion-dollar projects are years in the making.

"Our goal," he said, "is to get this shovel-ready for whatever funds come along."

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